


It's the Most Haunted Time of the Year

by Lukas17



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Spirits, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 16:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukas17/pseuds/Lukas17
Summary: As the prince of the local vampiric coven Noctis must hold a feast every year on his birthday. A stupid feast where he had to wear fancy clothes and eat something other than chicken nuggets and blood pudding. All he wanted was for the evening to go as quickly and painlessly as possible.





	It's the Most Haunted Time of the Year

**Author's Note:**

> This is Halloween.

The full moon may have been a week ago but Gladio still was still feeling the effects of eating an entire deer. His body felt sluggish and his stomach felt like it still hadn’t properly digested the meal. Many werewolves were a bit more feral on full moons, but the poor dietary decision was all Gladio’s. Hopefully the walk he was on towards his charge’s house emptied his stomach enough to enjoy dinner.

Noctis lived in the mansion across town, a gift from his father. The building originally was named Arksey Manor, but Noctis renamed it to Spencer Mansion because he thinks he’s funny. The place had all the hallmarks of a typical vampiric mansion. Pointy, sinister looking decorations with few working lights. Everything was built out of solid black material and there were several hidden passageways that hid a variety of unsavory creatures. It had been haunted by a ghost for the past fifty years and had no hot water. Gladio hated the look of it but he had a job to do and that job was not to be an interior decorator.

Ignis was already there stirring gelatin sheets into a pot of blood to make red jelly. It was an easy snack to make and to eat since Noctis, once left to his own devices, often didn’t feel like keeping up with his iron intake and often passed out on the couch from low blood iron. Behind Ignis several of his thralls were working on the actual food. One whole lamb was being roasted in the oven. Platters of olives, cheeses, and crackers were already on standby. Potatoes were just being boiled so they could be turned into mashed potatoes. Several salads were being assembled for in between courses. Lobsters for a lobster ravioli. A savory cream soup. And full cream chocolate ice cream with fresh fruit. Gladio took one look at everything and realized that he was going to once again wreck his stomach.

“Where’s his royal princess?” Gladio asked after he leered at the food for long enough.

“Oh somewhere. I was here three days ago and I didn’t see him.”

“Did we lose him?”

“No he’s around. I keep finding chocolate bar wrappers, so unless he has finally found a thrall he is here.” Ignis poured the jelly into small, plastic containers and set them in the fridge to cool. “Well we have thirty minutes until the rest of his guests begin to arrive so we should look for him.”

“Who’s here already?”

Ignis didn’t need to say anything, the unimpressed look on his face spoke volumes. Outside of the kitchen, through the dining room, and into the seating area sat the local witch, Aranea, with her familiars, two black cats named Biggs and Wedge. She’d dressed up for the occasion, wearing a leather jacket over her black dress and a pair of knee high leather boots. Aranea had been invited to run damage control, she was the only person around able to keep their poltergeist in check, and thus there was always some leniency in how she conducted herself.

“Where Prince Prissy?”

“We do not know. You wouldn’t happen to have seen him recently would you?”

“Nope.” She leaned back and crossed her legs. “He’s probably lost in this big ol’ house.”

“Yes, well, if you find him please shout for us.”

“I will make no such promises”

They decided to split up to look for Noctis. Gladio took the east wing and Ignis the west. Since Noctis wasn’t in the halls Gladio figured he was within the many passages hidden passages that stretched inside and under the mansion. He began in one that opened up behind a grandfather clock and slowly moved downwards, crawling into the crawl space that lead to the underground stairwell. The underground stairwell was just a series of stairs that slowly went down to a small, medical ish laboratory. It hadn’t been used to do experiments in at least half a century and mostly held “blood donors”, unfortunate people that vampires fed on until they were drained or turned into ghouls. There were two men currently sitting in a cage, one a politician who had tried to force Noctis out of his home to build a new school on the land and a young pizza boy who was just unlucky. If Noctis had gotten hungry while down there he would’ve stopped by to feed from one of them.

Both men immediately perked up as he approached. Their clothes were dirty and hung loose on their thinning bodies. Gladio didn’t usually come down so they both jumped to the front of their cell and began pleading with him for help.

“Are you here to rescue us? Quick, he leaves the key over on that bench. Help us!” The pizza boy pleaded.

“So he’s been down here recently?” Gladio asked.

“He hasn’t been down in two days.” The politician said. He checked his watch to make sure that he was correct. “Are you with the police? Are there more of you coming??”

“Shit.” Noctis was a blood binger so he normally took big draws once every three to four days which meant that Gladio couldn’t stick around and hope to catch him in the act. He turned and left the screaming, pleading men to their doom to continue his search for the royal dumbass. He did some more searching in the underground stairwell before heading up to the secret graveyard entrance. This entrance was the most east secret entrance, and spilled into a large graveyard that sat next to the mansion. Gladio scanned the gravestones, searching down the rows until he found his charge laying on top of the grave for Mary Thorn a nurse who killed ten people during the war. Noctis’ face was plastered to the dirt of the grave. His clothes were dirty, his hair a mess, and a Nintendo Switch laid on his chest. Annoyed, Gladio stomped over to wake up his charge.

“Hey.” Gladio said. “Hey wake up!” He kicked Noctis’ side semi-gently which caused Noctis to grunt and roll over. “Wake up! Your guests are arriving in ten minutes.”

“Gaaaaaaaah.” Noctis moaned,

“You’ve slept enough, come on.” Gladio reached down and hauled Noctis up to his feet, causing his switch to tumble harmlessly to the leaves.

“Hey!” Noctis, now awake, reached down and hurriedly picked up his game. “I just got this!”

“And you can sleep with it later. You have responsibilities to attend to.”

“What?” He opened up the switch to check the time on the screen. ”Maaaaan, let’s just get this over with.”

“Very good, Ignis laid out your clothes in your room.”

“Yayyyy…”

First hurdle over and done with. Gladio made sure Noctis arrived back to his room and changed into his clothes. By then a few other guests had arrived. Cindy the Siren came wearing just about as many clothes as one expected, but no one dared mention anything. Sania, their local mermaid, managed to not smell completely of the marina and looked positively lovely in her mermaid train gown. It almost covered the finns that she couldn’t quite more completely into feet. Dave the zombie was enjoying pigs brain shots in the lounging area while Loqi sat at a table and glowered at everyone.

Gladio wanted to join the conversations, but before he even got that chance a small, ghostly form slowly meandered its way through a wall above a cabinet. There was a click when the apparition was halfway through the wall and the apparition paused before retreating back into the other room. After a second there was a crash that sounded like a now empty bottle hitting the floor before the ghost came through the wall once again. The silvery form then meandered into the main lobby before quickly forming into the undead visage of Prompto, the residential ghost.

Prompto tended to be a minor annoyance at best, and outright diabolical at worst. His favorite activity, since learning to become corporea, was to float into Noctis’ wine cellar and drink several bottles of very expensive alcohol. On this night he lazily floated over to Aranea and exchanged pleasant greetings with her. If all he did over the course of the evening was drink copious amounts of alcohol then that was a step in the right direction, and all of them could enjoy their evening.

“Hey there shortcake.” Aranea said with a smile. She kept him in line but she also a long term friend of his and the two occasionally exchanged diabolical favors. “Be nice to me this evening okay? I just want to enjoy this rich kid’s food.”

“It’s the same old same old though.”

“Yeah, but you can’t buy that kind of ice cream in the store. So you better not mess it up for me shortcake.”

Prompto shrugged, the picture of mischievous, “We’ll see.”

During their short exchange Noctis came down the steps finally dressed in presentable, clean clothes. The typical vampire in a suit with a shoulder cape fastened with gold chain. He took a glance around, surveying his guests, before landing on Prompto and Aranea, who’s conversation had turned to the local sports teams. Noctis made a beeline for the duo, interrupting their conversation.

“She’s not here yet Prom, did you send the invitations?”

Prompto rolled his ghostly eyes. “Yes, I sent the invitations.”

“And the singing telegram?”

“I thought you were joking…”

“Oh, so you didn’t send them all!”

“I can barely hold a pen, Noct! How am I supposed to send thirty different invitations to the same girl!”

“You promised!”

“I forgot!”

The doorbell screamed, interrupting the arguing duo and Aranea’s entertainment. Prompto took a lemon drop martini from one of the passing thralls while Noctis hauled ass to answer the door and find the object of his affection, and her jackass brother, on the other side.

“Sorry we’re late Noctis.” Lunafreya said. She was the princess of the coven a town over and her brother was the prince. Noctis liked Luna. Not so much Ravus.

“Happy birthday.” Ravus said. “Here’s your gift.”

Ravus dropped a hundred pack of skewers in Noctis’ hand then brushed passed Luna and Noctis to drink inside. Luna looked a bit guilty, but they both knew that Ravus would do something like this so Noctis just dropped the packet for a thrall to pick up.

“So, two hundred. Almost old enough to rule the kingdom.”

“Yeah, but you know, dad’s not going anywhere anytime soon.” He scoffed his boot in the dirt. “Hopefully.”

“Good thing too. Lets you have fun and enjoy adulthood for a while and-”

“Hey Ignis said dinner’s ready.” Prompto said, carrying his drink in a solid hand, “Do you need an invitation Lady Lunafreya?”

Luna chuckled, “No, but thank you Prompto,” She stepped inside and followed the crowd to the main dining hall.

The dinner was a very formal event despite it mostly being friends and acquaintances. In a night or so Noctis would enjoy a more informal affair that involved race car pajamas and binging the Harry Potter movies, but for this evening he sat down at the head of the table in the main hall with his guests and waited for the first course to be served. Besides him Ignis sat to make sure Noctis didn’t do anything significantly stupid, and everyone else took the seats they preferred around the table. Dinner was served in courses with rows of bread at the center for anyone who wanted some.

All Noctis could hope for was for the dinner to come and go quickly and painlessly. He didn’t want to look stupid in front of Luna nor did he want to deal with anyone else’s issues. Honestly the only person who had him worried was Prompto, who had a history of doing some haunting during any function he organized and he was expecting nothing less this evening. He eyed Prompto suspiciously, waiting for him to abandon his drink to yank someone’s ear wax from their heads or something equally gross and evil.

Despite Noctis’ worries conversation at the table was pleasant, at least what Noctis could hear from the top of the table. Ignis kept him pleasantly occupied with light conversation, but Ignis was very much a man who enjoyed his food more than talking so there were big pauses while Ignis took a bite and slowly enjoyed his food. Gladio was much more forthcoming since the full moon had been a week ago. He was much less feral after the events and ate at a moderate pace. They both talked about games until Luna turned and joined their conversation about King’s Knight. The chance to impress her was wasted, however, when she revealed that she was at a higher level then him. He fished for more impressive feats to talk about, but was interrupted during the main course by a sudden noise from the room above. He and several people looked up, confused as to what the issue was.

“What was that?” He asked. Glancing out at his guests he realized that two, Loqi and Ravus, had disappeared during the evening.

“Is that where they went?” Aranea asked. Her meal was already gone and she was lazily swirling another glass of red wine in her hands.

“Probably.” Prompto said. He was also swirling a glass of red wine. “That’s where I told them to go.”

“Go where?” Ignis asked.

“To fight. They really got into it during the third course.”

Luna sighed and slowly pushed away from the table, “I will go talk to them. I apologize for my brother.”

“No, I shall go.” Ignis sighed as he stood, “Please, everyone, enjoy your dinners.”

Ignis didn’t get the chance to take a step towards the door when there was a very loud and sudden crack from above. There was another, and then a third, and then the entire ceiling gave way. Bursting open and expelling a fighting vampire and zombie onto the large, sturdy dining room table. A plank of wood flew off, belting Noctis in the forehead and causing the skin to split open. When he could focus his eyes on the commotion after the impact the worst of it had passed. Loqi was trying choke out Ravus, who was struggling against the attack despite the fact that no vampire could die by choking. Above them an old chest freezer had been kicked over and decades old ice had been knocked down through the hole.

For the most part the crowd was not at all shocked or even put out by the confrontation. Gladio and Cindy attempted to step in and separate them but Aranea leaned over to gossip with Sania and Prompto was cheering them both on from a spot floating in the air.

They eventually got separated enough for the room to calm down and by then it was clear dinner was over. Aranea was passing into drunk territory and Sania was busy taking notes on vampiric temperament when agitated by overcooked dinner rolls. Dave had been sitting quietly in the corner watching the event, but had noticed a frozen over piece of meat that must’ve gotten kicked out of the old freezer and landed on the table. He picked it up and took a big bite out of it. The action drew the attention of many people, and he seemed embarrassed when he realized that eating weirdly frozen over meet would draw looks.

“What? Dinner’s ruined!” He said in protest of scrutiny.

“You could’ve waited. What kinda meat is that? Is it Loqi’s?” Cindy protested.

“I can’t be. Zed meat don’t taste good.”

“Oh hey, that’s my thigh.” Prompto said. “How long has that been up there?”

“Prompto has a piece of your body been in this mansion the entire time?” Ignis protested.

“My entire body is still here.” Prompto corrected.

Ignis sighed, “We have a hundred year old body still in this house that’s perfect.”

“It’s like an easter egg hunt.” Dave said. “There’s always those few that never get found.”

“My birthday next year is cancelled.” Noctis said. “May I never age again, you people are terrible.”


End file.
